


Those Cloaked In Shadow

by Ch3sh1r3Hatt3r



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Implied/Referenced Abuse, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-08-19 11:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16533836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ch3sh1r3Hatt3r/pseuds/Ch3sh1r3Hatt3r
Summary: Kaylar never really got the chance to be normal. Never knew a time where they (or he or she) couldn’t see ghosts. But maybe Kaylar might get a shot at normal. All it takes is one stop in Henrietta, Virginia and a strange voice whispering in a language that Kaylar doesn’t know. Not quite the normal that one would expect, but one that Kaylar would happily accept when it comes to knowing people just as weird as them/her/him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The language Kaylar is speaking is Polish, and the translations are in parentheses. (Thank you to TheSongStuckInYourHead for asking about it and reminding me that I never made note of that)

Kaylar is conceived by accident.

Cameron Evaelo is so overjoyed at the prospect of a child to call his own that even Melissa Evaelo’s bitter, pinched face manages to form a smile.  

Melissa Evaelo keeps the child.

 

Kaylar is born on a warm April morning.

Melissa Evaelo holds the child gingerly, but Cameron Evaelo cradles the baby lovingly.

 

Kaylar isn’t a crying baby, Kaylar is more of a laughing one.

And Kaylar laughs and laughs and laughs until Melissa Evaelo pinches Kaylar to make them shut up when Cameron isn’t looking.

Cameron notices the small black bruises on the endersides of Kaylar’s forearms, but does not realize that it’s his wife that’s making them.

 

“Wha’s wrong wi’ pa?”

“Nothing, Kaylar.”

“Bu’ ma, they’re sayin’ tha’ pa ‘s _sick_.”

”Don’t listen in on grown ups, Kaylar.”

“… “

“Miss Evaelo? We have some pressing news for you.”

Kaylar is three and doctors are saying that Kaylar’s pa is sick but that if he does these things he’s going to get better, but he’s not getting better.

Melissa Evaelo grows ever distant.

 

“Ma?”

“Hmmm?”

“Where’s pa?”

“Not now, Kaylar.”

Kaylar is five and Cameron Evaelo passes away.

 

The funeral is a small arrangement.

There are a few friends of Cameron’s and a few of Melissa’s.

Kaylar remains at Melissa’s side for the entirety of the service and the wake without saying a word.

Kaylar does not cry. (And looking back on it, Kaylar sometimes thinks that’s when Melissa started hating her child. Her child, who did not cry as the man who helped raise Kaylar was lowered into the ground and buried with dirt.)

Kaylar is dragged back home with a bruising grip almost as soon as the last guest offers their condolences and leaves.

 

“But, ma, Flynn is _real!_ ”

“You’re too old ta have imaginary friends, Kaylar. Grow up.”

“But, _ma_.”

“Flynn. Ain’t. Real.”

“Ma—“

“I don’t care what it takes, you will not embarrass the family by claiming ta have an imaginary friend.”

Kaylar is seven and Kaylar sees ghosts.

 

Kaylar is eight and Kaylar’s birth certificate says that Kaylar is a _he_ , but Kaylar isn’t only a _he_ , because _he_ can be a _they_ or a _she_ sometimes.

Sometimes the ghosts will whisper information that chills Kaylar right down to the very bones.

Stories about how people like Kaylar had died because they didn’t _fit_ like they were supposed to.

 

“Only fags wear that!”

“But, ma!”

“Your father did not die for me ta raise a faggot, ya hear me?”

“…”

“Do ya hear me boy?”

“…”

“Yes, ma.”

Kaylar is ten and Melissa Evaelo has been assuring Kaylar of their/his/her worthlessness on the daily.

Whenever this happens, the ghosts fall silent as if they want Kaylar to hear every word of it.

 

“I’m sorry, ma!”

“That’s not good enough, brat!”

Kaylar is fourteen when Melissa Evaelo hits him/them/her for the first time, leaving a purple bruise on Kaylar’s cheekbone.

The ghosts whisper, but do nothing else.

 

“Hello?”

“This is Melissa Evaelo. I’d like ta lodge a missing persons case for my son.”

Kaylar is also fourteen when they/she/he runs far, far, far away without ever looking back in a stolen trailer pulled by a battered old pickup truck, boxes of Cameron Evaelo’s belongings piled up in the trailer.

Kaylar doesn’t leave soon enough, though, and drives away with a bleeding gash that starts just below their/her/his eye and ends somewhere under Kaylar’s left ear.

Melissa lodges a missing persons report for Kaylar, but nobody ever looks.

Eventually, she retracts the report.

The ghosts no longer have reason to be silent.

 

“Watch where you’re driving that thing!”

“Nie moja wina, że jesteś na drodze, dupku!” (Not my fault you were in the way, asshole.)

“What?”

“Of course, I should’ve anticipated ya sprintin’ out onta the street at the last minute right from the start.”

“It’s not my fault you drive like a maniac!”

“Oh yeah? Think ya could do any better?”

Kaylar is fourteen when they/he/she almost runs one Weston Yearly over.

 

Weston Yearly does not ask questions.

He does not comment on the beanie that is always on Kaylar’s head, covering their/his/her ears at all times and the band-aids plastering a good chunk of the entire left side of his/their/her face.

He does not remark on the skirts or the loose shirts with long sleeves that cover Kaylar’s hands.

He never talks about how Kaylar flinches when people raise their hands too fast or raise their voices unexpectedly.

The fact that sometimes Kaylar looks like she/he/they are listening to someone who’s not there is never touched on.

Weston Yearly drags Kaylar into something like a friendship.

He lounges on the hood of his shiny black Maserati and offers Kaylar joints that they/he/she will occasionally accept.

He tells Kaylar stupid jokes that make her/him/the, laugh while they drink milkshakes at a diner.

He uses the correct pronouns most of the time, and even when he doesn’t Kaylar feels good (well, not good, but better) about it, because for once in their/her/his life, someone is _trying_.

He races Kaylar all across the small county, back and forth in clouds of dust, a mismatched pair of cars just like them.

Weston Yearly is laughing in the dark as they stumble back to Kaylar’s trailer drunk, the smell of burnt tire rubber and the light floating feeling of happiness, the first of which Kaylar has felt in a long time.

 

“Whoever gets to the end first wins. Simple.”

“That it?”

“What? You thought drag racing was going to be on a racetrack or something?”

Half a month passes before Weston Yearly’s Maserati is flipped upside down by a Porsche.

The seatbelt cuts his air supply off before anybody reaches him.

Kaylar packs up and leaves and takes Weston Yearly’s drag racing teachings with them/him/her.

 

Kaylar finds a nice little town called Henrietta.

Parks their/his/her trailer illegally.

Heads into town to look around and ignores the ghosts lining the sidewalks.

Ignores a quiet voice that whispers _mors olim videns_ and murmurs _reperio nos_.

Kaylar isn’t sure what that’s supposed to mean, but they/she/he ignore it all the same.

 

Kaylar Evaelo meets Blue Sargent like this, standing on the front steps of 300 Fox Way with no less than three layers on while the hot Virginia sun beats down on Henrietta like it has a personal vendetta against the town.

Kaylar rings the bell impatiently, mismatched eyes(left eye dark blue, right eye a pale green)  squinting in the bright sun. A few seconds pass, and Kaylar’s just about to ring the doorbell again when the door itself flies open, revealing a girl, whose hair is about as short as her.

Which is to say, short.

She’s got one dark eyebrow raised, and looks up at Kaylar challengingly. Being tall is a rare sort of sensation for her (because it’s a _she_ day and it doesn’t matter if _she_ doesn’t quite look the part), and it takes Kaylar a moment to adjust.

“You don’t have an appointment,” the girl says, giving Kaylar a once over.

All of a sudden, she feels self conscious about the loose skirt over leggings that she’d decided to wear today, wonders why she let the surge of confidence this morning fool her into wearing it.

Still, Kaylar manages to keep her face impassive. It was her choice; she can live with it until the end of the day. 

“I’m lookin’ for Maura Sargent,” she says in an even tone.

The other girl’s eyes are boring into Kaylar’s.

“She’s not home right now.”

Kaylar twists fingerless gloved hands nervously. “Do ya know when she’s comin’ back?”

“Ten minutes, give or take,” the girl replies, shrugging. Her eyes narrow. “But that doesn’t matter, because you don’t have an appointment.”

Kaylar considers leaving, but the volume of the voice that’s been whispering away since she’d driven into town chooses that moment to increase in volume.

 _Haec illi_ , it says. _Hic est quis vos postulo._

Kaylar doesn’t know if it’s a bad sign that she wonders whether the voice knows that she can’t understand whatever language that is before she considers that she’s really going crazy this time around.

“This is urgent,” she says firmly.

“If it’s urgent enough, you should’ve made an appointment.”

Kaylar breathes in. Lets it out slowly.

“I’m new in town.”

The girl sighs deeply.

“You’re not going away, are you?”

Kaylar thinks a moment.

 _Haec illi_ , the voice says, more insistently.

Kaylar still does not know what that means.

“No.”

 

The girl is Blue Sargent and she is the only non-psychic in a house full to the brim of them.

Kaylar knows this because the ghost of a little girl who’s bound to the hallways tells her.

The dead are always such gossips.

Blue leads Kaylar into the kitchen, which is cluttered with all sorts of paraphernalia, almost enough to put Kaylar’s own messy trailer to shame.

“Do you want anything to drink?” Blue asks, going over to the stove where a pot of something is being heated.

Presumably water, given the mug on the counter with a tea bag hanging out of it.

Kaylar shakes her head.

Regrets it.

Rubs her temples.

Blue frowns.

“Something wrong?” she asks.

Kaylar shrugs. Blue squints.

“You’re not very chatty, are you?” she comments, turning the heat on the stove down.

Kaylar shrugs again, a small smile creeping onto her face.

Blue lifts the pot and pours boiling hot water into the mug.

The tea bag disappears into the cup and the pot is placed back on the stove.

“What are you here for?” Blue asks, leaning onto the counter, mug cradled in her hands.

Kaylar weighs her options carefully.

The ghost of the little girl had told her that what they do here is real.

Blue might believe seeing the ghosts.

Blue might not believe hearing imaginary voices (voice, actually. Just one so far, and thank god for that.) speaking in a language that Kaylar doesn’t know.

But Blue lives in a house full of psychics, so maybe she will.

“It’s been three hours since I drove past the property line of Henrietta,” Kaylar says slowly. “I’ve been hearin’ a voice for all three of those hours.”

Blue sets her mug down, brow furrowed.

“What does it sound like?”

So she does believe her, then.

Kaylar folds her arms on the counter, leaning against it.

Thinks.

“Whispery,” she settles on eventually. “Quiet. Not too loud. Like a breeze that rustles a tree’s leaves. It’s talkin’ ta me, but I don’t know the language.”

Blue opens her mouth to say something.

The door opens before she can.

“Blue?” a woman’s voice calls. “Persephone called to say that someone unexpected was coming over today!”

“They’re already here, mom!”

A woman rounds the corner, and Kaylar straightens up quickly.

“Are you Maura Sargent?” she asks.

The woman (dark-skinned, dark-eyed with long brown hair) peers at Kaylar, and she has the uncomfortable feeling that this woman is seeing much more than just physical appearances.

“This is them,” the woman says decisively.

 

The woman is, in fact, Maura Sargent, and Maura Sargent informs Kaylar that there is something in Henrietta, Virginia, that is calling for her.

“But what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can ya figure it out?”

“With time, maybe.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know.”

 

Kaylar leaves 300 Fox Way with no answers and an invitation to breakfast the next day.

 

Kaylar is never one to refuse free food, even if it is a _he_ day when it was a _she_ day the last time _he_ saw the Sargents.

Kaylar meets Calla and extends a hand to shake, but whips it away at the last moment, eyes narrowing.

“Czy twój pierwszy instynkt jest bezwzględną suką, gdy spotykasz ludzi?” he snaps. (Is it your first instinct to be an absolute bitch when you meet people?)

Calla raises an eyebrow.

“Ya shouldn’t just invade people’s privacy like that,” he says flatly.

Calla smirks, backing away in defeat.

Persephone takes one look at Kaylar and hums thoughtfully.

“You see many things,” she says gently. “Don’t let it overwhelm you.”

Kaylar wonders how Persephone knows, but dismisses the thought almost immediately.

Psychics.

Maura herds Kaylar into the kitchen and presents him with a plate piled with eggs and directs him to set it somewhere in the middle of the table.

Blue makes a face at Kaylar as she carries a stack of toast out of the kitchen, but pulls Kaylar down to sit beside her.

 

Afterwards, Persephone, Calla and Maura all gather in what they called ‘the reading room’, bringing Blue with them, and tell Kaylar to pick as many cards as he’d like from a deck of tarot.

Kaylar almost misses how even Maura uses he pronouns, because last time Kaylar had seen Maura _he_ was a _she_.

Kaylar hesitates. Wonders how he’s supposed to pick the right cards.

“The ones that feel right are the ones you choose,” Persephone says like she had read his mind.

Kaylar glances up at her cautiously and lays his hand in the deck.

In the end, Kaylar picks twelve piping-hot cards.

“Arrange then according to how hot they feel,” Maura instructs.

Blue sits in the back of the room and doesn’t say a word.

Kaylar hesitates before arranging them carefully.

“Turn them over,” Persephone says gently.

Eight of Cups, upright.

The Devil, upright.

The World, reversed.

The Six of Swords and the Moon feel about the same temperature, so Kaylar flips them at the same time.

Six of Swords, reversed.

The Moon, upright.

Eight of Wands is turned over at the same time as the Tower, both upright.

Three of Cups.

Nine of Swords.

Two of Wands.

Eight of Pentacles.

Nine of Wands, upright like the last eight.

Calla’s brow creases, Maura’s eyes darken while Persephone simply hums.

“What does it mean?” Kaylar asks, determined to leave with more than he knew yesterday.

“You walked away from something important,” Maura explains, albeit hesitantly. “Your emotions were tied to it so strongly that now that you’re away you need closure, but you can’t do that because things that you buried during that period of time are coming back.”

“The Eight of Wands coupled with the Tower brings swift change,” Persephone warns. “Not all of it will be good, but once your trials are over you will look at life with a fresh perspective.”

Kaylar is almost too nervous to ask what the other cards mean.

He doesn’t have to ask.

“Through this change, you will work with others and raise yourselves above what you once were, but not without doubting yourself,” Persephone continues. “Your fears grow to consume you, fueled by you and you alone. But the Two of Wands tells you that you’re to step outside of your comfort zone and learn new things. Paired with the Eight of Pentacles, these new skills will improve your other skills, or bring about better ways to use them.”

A beat of hesitation.

“The Nine of Wands tells of your mistrust of others and yourself, but if you remain resilient and persevere, you will succeed.”

Silence.

“You’re possibly the gloomiest person I have ever done a reading for in my life,” Calla remarks.

Kaylar leaves soon after with answers that don’t seem like answers and a full stomach for the first time in a while.

 

Kaylar doesn’t know how long it’s going to take for the psychics to figure out what the fuck is whispering _mors olim videns_ in _their_ ear, but there is something and Kaylar isn’t leaving until they tell them what it is.

So Kaylar goes into town and looks for a job.

 

“I saw the notice on the front. Ya hirin’?”

“Sure am, kid.“

“Just Kaylar, please.”

“You think you can be here tomorrow for a test day?”

“Sure thing, sir.”

 

“Are you Kaylar?”

“Yeah.”

“Boyd sent me to show you around.”

“M’kay. What’s your name?”

“Adam Parrish.”

 

“First official day?”

“Yup.”

“Good luck.”

Kaylar is almost fifteen when _they_ acquire a job at Boyd’s and meet Adam Parrish.

 

“You need to go to school.”

“Nie łudź się.” (Don’t delude yourself)

“Kaylar.”

“Bullshit.”

“ _Kaylar_.”

“I’m callin’ bullshit on ya callin’ bullshit on me callin’ bullshit on your bullshit.”

“Even as a psychic I can’t follow that. But you’re going to school.”

“Jak ja, piekło.” (Like hell I am)

“English.”

“Who’s paying?”

“We will.”

A snort.

“Don’t kid yourself.”

“Kaylar.”

Sharper. Disciplinary.

Kaylar tries not to flinch, _she_ really does.

“I’m sorry.”

“Fuck off, Maura.”

A beat of silence.

“I’ll pay for it myself. You’re already doin’ enough for me.”

 

Kaylar goes to Mountain View.

Kaylar also picks up three other jobs.

“Kaylar, you’re going to overwork yourself.”

“Możesz pieprzyć się w prawo.” (You can fuck right off)

“I don’t know what you’re saying, but it’s probably rude.”

“Did Maura send you?”

“Maura isn’t the only one who gets to worry about you.”

“Fuck off, Bluebird.”

“When you said you’d pay for it, Maura didn’t want you to run yourself into the ground, asshole.”

“I can do this.”

“No you fucking can’t.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

 

The first day of Mountain View starts and Kaylar hates it, but knows that it’s _her_ money going into this, so _she_ grits her teeth and scowls her way through the day.

Blue is the only person she knows, since Adam transferred to Aglionby.

As far as Kaylar could tell, Aglionby was for rich fucks who wanted their kids to be just as stuck up and posh as them.

Trouble. That’s all they were, and Kaylar doesn’t need Blue to tell her that.

Still, Adam was joining those rich fucks, so not all of them were so bad.

 

“You look pissy.”

“Jak możesz mówić.” (Like you can talk.)

“That just proves my point.”

“An astute observation, Parrish. What brought it about?”

“The fact you look like you could gut something just by glaring at it.”

“Wypuszczę cię.” (I will gut you)

“Huh?”

“Who says I can’t?”

“I’m not dead yet, am I?”

“You’re awful chatty today.”

“You could’ve just told me to fuck off.”

 

Kaylar and Adam work side by side from four to six, but then Adam leaves and so does Kaylar, both heading to different jobs.

It’s only after Kaylar has to swerve wildly to avoid crashing with a BMW does she understand what the Eight of Wands and the Tower has been trying to tell her.

 

The swerve must’ve been too hard on _something_ , because the engine splutters and dies, leaving the truck to roll to a slow stop.

Kaylar swears viciously, flinging the door open and practically throwing herself out of the truck.

The engine is smoking.

Kaylar does not need three years of working with cars to tell her that that’s not good.

“Gówno,” she mutters. “ _Pierdolić_.” (Shit. Fuck.)

There’s a screech of tires and then the stupid-ass BMW that was at fault for this whole mess pulls up beside her. There’s no movement from the driver’s side, but Kaylar hears the passenger’s side open and close before a boy about her age hurries around.

Kaylar barely restrains herself from baring her teeth aggressively, a habit formed as a child that Melissa Evaelo hated and Cameron Evaelo adored.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” the boy exclaims.

Kaylar crosses her arms, eyes narrowing. Her lips twitch, and she fights to keep them in a surly scowl instead of drawing back.

The boy is tall with brown hair (styled without a hair out of place) and dark eyes that are clouded with worry. He’s also, Kaylar notes, wearing hideous boat shoes. But the thing that really draws Kaylar’s attention is the raven monogram on the beige sweater that he’s wearing.

She’d seen that emblem on the identical, albeit more worn, sweater that Adam had had to buy during the summer before school started.

Raven Boy.

“Jaki to był ruch dupek?” Kaylar snaps. (What kind of asshole move was that?)

The boy looks confused, and Kaylar barely manages to swallow the increasingly insulting words that are bubbling up in her throat.

That’s her only mode of transportation. Transportation that gets her to her fucking jobs on time.

“I’m terribly sorry,” the boy says, evidently over his confusion about the language. “We can get it fixed, I promise.” He squints. “What language was that?”

“What language was that?” Kaylar repeats incredulously. “Ya nearly ran me over!”

“You’re right, you’re right, I’m sorry for that too,” the boy says, wincing.

Kaylar huffs, turning away. “Doesn’t matter now,” she grumbles. “I won’t be able to make it to work today either way.”

The boy’s eyes widen.

“We can give you a lift,” he says earnestly.

Kaylar snorts loudly.

“Ya say that like I’m perfectly willin’ to get into a car with the _very same person_ who just almost ran me over.”

She kicks one of the tires on the truck.

“Even if I was stupid enough ta agree ta that, it’s not like I can just leave my car on the side of the fuckin’ road.”

“We can call for a tow truck,” the boy says, like that was the most obvious solution.

Kaylar scowls.

“If I could afford a tow truck, I would’ve called one as soon as some _crazy-ass_ _driver_ almost ran me the fuck over!”

“I’m sorry!” the boy exclaims, actually looking a little frightened.

The sound of a window rolling open cuts through the tension.

“Dick, if he doesn’t want any help, don’t help,” a voice from the driver’s side seat.

 _He_.

The word sits heavy on Kaylar’s chest, throwing _her_ off.

When the only people you know are psychics, you tend to get comfortable with the correct pronouns being used without prompting.

But years of being called a _he_ when _he_ was a _she_ or a _they_ had conditioned Kaylar well, and she doesn’t squirm.

“ _She_ ” —and doesn’t that feel equal parts uncomfortable and elating, correcting the pronoun usage— “never said that _she_ didn’t want help, just that all the ideas he” —a thumb jabbed in the general direction of the other boy— “had were stupid.”

The boy in the car—another Raven Boy, Kaylar notes with no small amount of distaste—lets out a harsh bark of laughter.

He doesn’t fit the image of ‘Raven Boy’ as well as the so-called Dick did, with his perfect hair, expensive watch and spotless uniform. He’s dark-skinned, with piercing blue eyes that churn with something akin to anger mixed with excitement (although that’s quickly fading into annoyance). His hair had been completely shaved off, only a thin layer of bristly fuzz left, and his jumper with the telltale raven monogram emblazoned on it is nowhere to be seen, although the tie (undone and draped lazily around his neck) gives away the fact that he’s from Aglionby.

There are five knotted leather bands around the wrist attached to the hand on the wheel, and knowing that he was the one who nearly ran her over makes Kaylar’s blood boil.

“Fuck ya both,” she snaps, pushing past ‘Dick’ (that must be short for something, because who in their right mind, even rich-ass snobs, would name their kid _Dick_ , no matter how fitting?) to get to the bed of the truck.

Catching ahold of the sides, Kaylar grunts as she uses her arms to pull her lower body up into the bed of the truck. Kneeling, Kaylar throws open the lid of a compartment with more force than warranted, digging past blankets and snacks to get to the bottom, strands of dark blue hair escaping the lazy bun held up by a screwdriver of all things. 

Neither of the boys have moved when Kaylar hops over the side of the truck bed, bending her knees to absorb the impact.

Straightening up, she ignores both of the boys’ curious gazes and makes her way over to the hood of the truck.

Popping the hood, she beckons ‘Dick’ over. When he looks at her, bemusement written all over his face, she scowls and beckons more insistently.

“Hurry the fuck up,” she snaps. “I might be missin’ this shift, but I can make it in time to the next one if ya _move your ass_.”

That jolts the other out of his shock, and he hurries over to hold the hood up while Kaylar rummages through her toolbox.


	2. Chapter 2

Kaylar makes it to a later shift at Jumbo Joe’s (a tiny little coffee shop that’s warm and homey but is within driving distance of Aglionby, which, regrettably, means Raven Boys) and puts the thought of those two other Raven Boys out of her mind.

And then Adam stumbles into Jumbo Joe’s, eyes drooping, shoulders slumped and the beginnings of a bruise blossoming over his cheekbone, which pretty much wipes all other Raven Boys from her conscience. 

“Pieprzone piekło,” she mutters. (Fucking hell)

Adam rolls his eyes. 

“It’s not that bad,” he protests. 

“I’m not sure if ya’ve looked in a mirror recently, but ya look like someone set fire to a Dumpster, put the fire out and decided to cover it up with shit.”

“Thanks,” Adam mumbles, leaning against the counter. 

“Jesus, Adam,” Kaylar huffs. “Look, go back into the break room and take a nap or something, okay?”

Adam frowns, and opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, but closes it when faced with the Look that Kaylar shoots him. 

“Back. Now.”

“I need to leave at eight.”

“I’ll wake ya up if ya fall asleep, just fuckin’ get inta the break room before anyone else comes in.”

 

Kaylar walks into the back room at eight and finds Adam passed out over his homework. 

The ghost of a young girl, maybe seven or eight, sits on the seat beside him, kicking her insubstantial legs. She casts a strange look in Kaylar’s direction before she hops off the stool and disappears. 

Kaylar frowns, both because of the strange girl and out of reluctance to wake Adam because even after two months of knowing him, Kaylar knows that he hardly gets any sleep. 

But Kaylar also knows that the bruise on Adam’s cheekbone is not because he fell off his bike or because he tripped and fell. 

Kaylar has picked Adam up from his trailer and heard the yelling and she’s also been in his place, the one being yelled at. 

So Kaylar shakes his shoulder gently, clearing the homework out from under his head once Adam lifts it, eyes clouded with sleep. 

“It’s eight,” she says quietly. “Ya should go.”

Adam nods and collects his things and as Kaylar watches him leave from behind the counter, she can’t help but feel that if something happens to him tonight, it’s going to be her fault. 

 

The next day, just as his shift at Boyd’s is finishing up at six, Kaylar’s shitty, outdated phone rings. 

“Matka skurwiela,”  _ he _ says flatly. (Motherfucker)

“I take it that today wasn’t a good day?”

“Damn straight,” Kaylar grumbles, using a cloth to wipe as much grease off of his hands as possible. The phone is clamped between her ear and her shoulder. “One of those conceited rich fucks decided that he didn’t want a dirty Mexican in the same room as him, so I had to skip my break.”

He chucks the cloth back into the sink, leaning against the counter. 

“Głupi tyłek couldn’t tell the difference between Mexican and Desi, can ya believe that?” (Stupid ass)

“I guess now was a good time to call if you want some consolatory pizza.”

“Where at?”

“Nino’s, is that okay?”

“Sure. I also know firsthand that Nino’s has shitty coffee, so why the hell are ya goin’ outta your way to be there?”

A pause.

“I fixed a car for someone at my school and he invited me to Nino’s and I don’t know why I said yes, but I don’t want to do it alone.”

Kaylar sighs, checking his shitty watch. 

Six fifteen. 

“Whose phone are you using anyways?”

“His.”

Kaylar takes a deep breath in and let’s it out through his nose. 

“I’ll be there in five, Parrish.”

 

Waiting tables at Nino’s is one of Kaylar’s four precariously-balanced jobs, and the coffee is, indeed, absolute shit. 

Coming to Nino’s during off time is a little strange, but it’s not too uncomfortable. 

Adam meets him by the door, slender fingers tapping out a nervous rhythm on the side of his leg. 

“They’re inside,” he says as soon as Kaylar hops out of his truck. 

“They?”

“He brought friends.”

Kaylar pushes the door to the diner open, walking backwards so as to talk to Adam and decisively Not Looking at the ghosts crowding the area around the doorway. 

“Is it consolatory pizza if I’m buying it myself?”

“Technically the pizza is making you feel better, whether you bought it or not.”

“Hm. Ya have a point. It was a stupid question anyways.”

When Kaylar whirls around in front of the booth Adam had been directing him to, he freezes in place.

Two out of three of the boys already seated in the booth freeze as well. 

“You,” Kaylar says flatly. 

‘Dick’ pales. 

Kaylar looks at Adam. 

“Parrish, ya just made friends with the same guy who was sittin’ in the passenger seat of the car that almost ran me over.”

A distasteful glance at the other boy sitting in the booth. 

“And the guy who was drivin’.”

Adam, for his part, looks largely resigned to his shitty luck. 

 

‘Dick’ turns out to be Richard Gansey III, but insists that Kaylar call him Gansey. (And honestly, Kaylar can’t blame him for that even though Gansey isn’t that much of a step up from  _ Richard _ .)

The other dickbag is Ronan Lynch. 

The last one is Noah Czerny, a boy with hair so blonde that it was almost white.

Gansey is seated beside Ronan, who’s seated across from Noah. 

Adam slides in next to Noah and Kaylar glares bloody murder as he squeezes into the booth beside Adam. 

There’s something setting him off, something that’s not quite right. It’s tugging at the back of Kaylar’s mind, tapping him on the shoulder and darting away to the other side as soon as Kaylar looks. 

Pizza is ordered awkwardly. 

Kaylar makes a face as Gansey orders  _ avocado _ on  _ pizza _ and settles on a slice of cheese.

“So, Adam,” Gansey begins carefully. “How much do you know about Welsh kings?”

 

Adam and Kaylar know nothing about Welsh kings. Gansey, however, knows loads. 

Despite himself, Kaylar can feel himself get sucked into the whimsy of the whole thing. 

Of long-dead kings slumbering somewhere out there, waiting to be awoken. 

Of mystery. 

A wish. 

As he leaves Nino’s, Kaylar wonders what he’d do with that wish, if he had it. 

 

The one meeting turned into two, which tumbled into three and spiraled into four, five, six. 

Gansey, it turns out, is not actually a dick but rather a rich kid who doesn’t quite fit the stereotype but puts his foot in his mouth much too often. 

Still, that doesn’t make any of those mishaps any less irritating. 

“You can take a day off from work, can’t you?”

“Odpieprz się.” (Fuck off)

“Huh?”

“No.”

“It’s just one day, I’m sure you can—“

“Not all of us were born with trust funds,  _ Richard Gansey the Third _ . Some of us have to work to pay to go to a shitty public school.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh’. Like I said, odpieprz się.” (Fuck off)

 

Kaylar, however, is with Adam, and when she sees him reading a book about Welsh kings during her shift at Jumbo Joe’s one week, she knows that Gansey is a permanent fixture.

Although, with Gansey came Noah, which wasn’t that bad. 

Noah was happy, albeit with a morbid sense of humor, and was fun to talk with. 

But then there was Ronan, a scowly, snarky presence looming just behind Gansey. 

Kaylar supposes that’s what she is to Adam, so she makes no comment and continues wiping down tables. 

 

Noah is a ghost.

If Kaylar can be certain about one thing, it’s that. 

Honestly, they’re surprised it took them so long to figure it out, but as soon as Noah touched them, they  _ knew _ . 

Noah knows that Kaylar knows, as evidenced by his wide blue eyes. 

Kaylar stares him down without a word, mismatched eyes thoughtful.

“Nienawidzę swojego życia.” (I hate my life)

And Kaylar leaves it at that. 

 

Okay, Kaylar doesn’t exactly “leave it at that.”

No, Kaylar makes sure to watch Noah carefully from then on out, to listen closely whenever there’s a lull in the room (or about as close to a lull as one can get when you can hear ghosts gossiping their ghostly asses off).

Sometimes Kaylar can hear him. 

Buzzing with whatever energy is keeping him here, in the now, physical, corporeal,  _ real _ . 

It’s loud, that energy, and sometimes it’s loud enough to drown out the chatter of the ghosts. 

But it also means that sometimes it drowns out whatever people are trying to say to Kaylar, which earns her a few odd looks from Gansey. 

It’s a strange sensation. 

To have met someone barely a month and a half ago and spend so much time with them that they worry about you. 

It’s a different type of friendship, Kaylar decides, from the one she’d had with Weston Yearly. 

Weston Yearly had an abrasive take on friendship, but with Gansey and Adam and Ronan and Noah it was softer, somehow. 

But one thing Kaylar missed was the simplicity of Weston Yearly’s affection. 

You were friends and you would argue with each other, but eventually you’d come back together. 

With Gansey and Adam and Ronan and Noah, Kaylar wasn’t quite sure where she stood. 

 

It’s mid-November when Kaylar realizes that she has never mentioned Blue to Adam. 

It goes something like this.

“Oh, shit,” Kaylar yelps, checking the clock. “I’ve gotta run, promised I’d meet up with Blue.”

“Blue?” Adam asks, brow furrowing as he looks up from his spread of homework, taking up half of the space on the floor. 

“Blue,” Kaylar confirms distractedly, digging through the mess on a self-installed shelf that runs across three out of four trailer walls, positioned just a foot and a half above the back of a faded, pastel blue floral print couch that is possibly the comfiest thing that Kaylar has ever had the pleasure to lie on. 

A young adult male ghost is currently lounging on it, peering at Adam’s homework. He’d followed them in, and Kaylar doesn’t want to shoo him off the couch, because to Adam it will look like she’s lost her mind. 

“Is Blue really her name?”

“It’s on the birth certificate, yeah.”

A soft curse in Polish, before Kaylar finally yanks a worn canvas bag out of the mess kicked into the corner of the trailer. 

“Are you doing a project together?”

“Nah, she needs help with trigonometry.”

“Huh.”

 

Adam has disappeared for the week, and it doesn’t take much imagination for Kaylar to guess why. 

Kaylar feels the heavy, stomach-churning sensation that comes with guilt and it makes Kaylar feel like there is something to be done. 

There is nothing Kaylar can do and Kaylar knows that. 

Gansey, however, is frantic, and Ronan sits by and throws semi-comforting-mostly-aggravating sentences in while Noah and Kaylar bear witness.

“Do you think he’s alright? What if he got kidnapped? Or hit by a car? It really is too hard to see him on his bike in the middle of the night.”

“Stop worrying, Dick, he probably needed a break from your mother henning.”

“I don’t mother hen!”

“You’re doing it right now, Dick.”

“I don’t mother hen, I worry like a normal person.”

“Obsessively ranting for five minutes straight isn’t worry, it’s mother henning.”

Gansey splutters indignantly but can’t seem to come up with a counter argument.

 

Adam comes back at the end of the week with a yellowing bruise over his eye and a healing cut on his cheek.

Ronan asks who he pissed off. 

Adam doesn’t give an answer. 

Kaylar knows. 

_ “I had a mother like that,”  _ one of the ghosts (a young boy, barely twelve years of age) murmurs, staring at Adam’s healing face as if transfixed.  _ “She did this to me.” _

His hands drifts up to touch his smashed-in head.

Kaylar tries not to think about that happening to Adam. 

 

Ronan, Kaylar has noticed, has the tendency to disappear for nights on end then reappear like nothing had gone wrong. 

When asked, Gansey mutters something indecipherable under his breath and doesn’t say anything else on the subject. 

Kaylar tucks the odd occurrence away for later examination. 

So soon after Adam’s disappearance and reapprance, it was probably just Kaylar being paranoid. 

 

Kaylar visits Monmouth for the first time and cannot get over how ridiculous the whole arrangement is. 

“I can rewire your fridge so that it fits in the kitchen,” she offers. 

“No, it’s fine, really,” Gansey says. 

Kaylar wants to strangle him. 

She settles for doing donuts in the lot with Ronan. 

The stench of burning rubber makes Kaylar wrinkle her nose, but the blood in her veins is pumping madly and it’s been awhile since she’s done something like this. 

Ronan looks at her contemplatively when they get bored and tumble out of their cars and onto the grass. 

“What?” Kaylar asks, propping herself up on one arm. 

Ronan shrugs, stretching out on his back. 

“You’ve done this before,” he notes. 

Kaylar shrugs, wondering if Ronan can see her doing so. 

She decides that it doesn’t matter. 

“Who taught you?” he asks. 

Kaylar glances at him, letting herself flop back onto the ground. 

Gansey is usually the one with the prying questions, but Kaylar already knows so much about the boys that it’s only fair that one of them learned a little about her. 

“Weston Yearly. Rich asshole. Raced.”

Ronan shifts slightly. 

“Do you race?”

“I did.”

“If I told you that you could again?”

Kaylar does not hesitate. 

“I’d do it.”

 

A week later and Ronan doesn’t immediately head home after the weekly meet up at Nino’s. 

Adam had headed home with Gansey, so it was only Kaylar and him. 

“Where are we going?”

Ronan grunts and offers no answer. 

 

Their destination, it turns out, is an abandoned road. 

Only tonight it’s not so abanded so much as swarming with shiny cars with purring engines. 

“Who sets this all up?” Kaylar asks as Ronan barges through a sea of people without any visible fear of running them over. 

“Someone,” Ronan replies vaguely. 

Kaylar frowns, but says nothing as they pull up beside a white Mitsubishi. 

Ronan rolls down the window. The Mitsubishi’s is already down. 

“Ronan!” the driver exclaims. “You’re back!”

His eyes flit over to where Kaylar is slouched in the passenger seat, long blue hair wound up in a hastily-done bun.

Kaylar glares at him without saying a word. 

“Kavinsky, this is Kaylar. Kaylar, this is Kavinsky.”

Kavinsky’s gaze is sharp, piercing into Kaylar like he knows everything. 

Kaylar tries not to let that bother them, resting their elbow on the window and twirling an escaped strand of hair around their finger. 

The hair that’s wriggled free of the hair binder frames their face, but not enough to hide the fading scar across the right side of their face. 

“Do I get to race tonight?” Kaylar asks simply, making no move to acknowledge Ronan’s introductions. 

“Sure,” Ronan replies. 

There’s something wicked about Kavinsky’s smirk. 

“How about he races now?” the boy suggests. 

“Against you?” Kaylar asks, hand stilling. 

“Sure,” Kavinsky says, mirroring Ronan’s earlier statement. 

Kaylar throws open the passenger’s side door, sliding out gracefully and strolling to the driver’s side.

Ronan rolls down the window. 

“Move your ass,” Kaylar says bluntly. 

 

It’s nearing the end of December when Adam meets Blue. The sequence of events leading up to it goes something like this.

“Do you want to come over for Christmas?”

“I don’t do Christmas.”

“Hanukkah?”

“Yeah. Haven’t had much time to make any preparations this year.”

“How does it work?”

 

Hanukkah begins on the 20th, and Kaylar lights the first candle all by himself for the first time, arms heavy and tired from a good four hours at Boyd’s, but mind sharp enough to remember the blessings that he’s heard his mother say every year. 

Blue pops in around ten and drops off a small box.

_ From Persephone _ is scrawled on top.

It’s a deck of tarot cards. 

Not the most traditional of gifts, but Kaylar decides that it’s a gift from someone who wants to give something to him, so he accepts it gratefully. 

 

The second day of Hanukkah has Gansey asking non-stop questions about what Kaylar’s religion is like and how it works and what happens. 

Kaylar’s answer are short and clipped, even if there’s a small part of  _ her _ that’s blooming with warmth, because there has never been anyone as interested in Kaylar’s life as Gansey. 

Adam gives Kaylar a simple knotted bracelet and shrugs when she thanks him for it. 

That night, Kaylar thinks she hears a ghost singing Ma’Oz Tzur.

Kaylar sings along softly. 

 

The third day dawns, and for some reason the voice is louder today. 

_ Illic 'aliquid tenebris adventu _ , it says.  _ Calcare diligenter. _

Kaylar still does not know what that means. 

Ronan shoves a set of markers at Kaylar and mutters something about the ink being long-lasting. 

Kaylar tests that theory out on the walls of their trailer and is satisfied with their findings. 

 

Day four. 

The voice has fallen silent, and when Kaylar calls in from work to tell this to Maura, the psychic goes very quiet on the other end of the line. 

“Come over a little earlier,” the older of the two finally says. “We’ll see what we can do.”

Kaylar doesn’t know what Maura means by ‘do’, but he packs a bag that night to get ready for tomorrow.

 

Day five is when Adam meets Blue. 

“Who’s that?” Adam asks, pointing outside of Boyd’s with one grease-stained hand. 

Kaylar twists around awkwardly, both hands still holding two parts of an engine together for Adam, wrench clamped in their mouth and eyebrows raised in surprise. 

There’s a minivan parked outside Boyd’s. 

Kaylar says something, words muffled behind the wrench. 

Adam reaches over and takes it from their mouth. 

“That’s Blue.”

“The one who needed help with trig?” 

Kaylar nods as Adam finishes attaching the two parts together, letting go. 

“She invited me over for Christmas, but something came up so I have to visit earlier.”

“Don’t you celebrate Hanukkah?”

“Yeah. Doesn’t mean I can’t sit on a couch and watch shitty movies.”

Adam shrugs, rolling out his shoulders. 

 

It takes the two of them about five minutes to bring the engine over to the car that it had originally come from, and an additional ten to scrub as much grease and gunk off themselves to look vaguely presentable. 

They exit the garage together, passing two more mechanics on their way in. 

“Blue, this is Adam,” Kaylar introduces, throwing their bag into the back. “Adam, this is Blue.”

Adam and Blue look at each other for a good long while, staring contest broken by Blue nodding decisively and holding out a hand. 

Adam takes it with a small smile. 

 

The psychics of 300 Fox Way have dug up a menorah, four candles lit by the time Kaylar and Blue arrive. 

Kaylar lights the fifth and teaches everyone the blessings. 

 

The sixth day of Hanukkah begins with the excited chatter of little kids. 

_ Blue’s cousins, _ Kaylar remembers.  _ Or ghosts _ , an unhelpful part of her points out. 

Kaylar wants to go back to sleep. 

Blue does not. 

 

The psychics do another reading. 

It boils down to change hurtling towards Kaylar paired with hard decisions and adventure. 

Kaylar doesn’t much like the sound of that, but figures that she’s had enough experience with all of that to be prepared. 

 

There is no gift for the sixth day, but Kaylar doesn’t mind. 

The psychics of 300 Fox Way had opened their home to her, and she gladly accepts. 

Although, she could’ve skipped Maura’s horrible teas. 

 

The seventh day drags by slowly, the fact that Kaylar is working that day probably lending to that 

Nino’s is bustling by the time Kaylar begins his shift, and amid all the hustle and bustle is Adam, Gansey, Ronan and Noah. 

All four of them seem intent on distracting Kaylar from his job until he’s forced to take a break. 

“What do you want?” he asks exasperatedly, sliding into the booth. 

“We have a lead on Glendower,” Gansey says excitedly. 

Kaylar sighs. 

“Can this lead wait until after I’m finished with this shift?”

Gansey’s face falls, but evidently he remembers the first time he’d asked Kaylar to cut his day short, because he nods reluctantly. 

Blue calls Kaylar over to help with a particularly large order, and Kaylar has to leave. 

 

The lead, it turns out, is driving out to the middle of nowhere and wandering around some. 

Ronan teaches Adam how to make a flower crown, something that Kaylar would never have expected the tall, muscular boy to know. 

Kaylar wants to slap himself for thinking that, because he of all people should know not to judge others by their appearances. 

Kaylar demands Noah give him a piggyback ride, and they charge ahead of the others. 

While they wait for Adam, Ronan and Gansey to catch up they climb trees as high as they can and drop twigs on them when they stand beneath the trees. 

Ronan is roped into a game of tag, Adam and Gansey looking on with small smiles as Kaylar vaults off a fallen tree and grabs ahold of a low-hanging tree branch, swinging once before flying forwards as Noah attempts to tag him. 

Gansey almost forgets where he’d parked the Camaro, resulting in ten minutes of panicked muttering before Adam remembers the way back. 

They find nothing. 

But they have fun. 

 

December 27th, the final day of Hanukkah, is cold as fuck, and Kaylar and Blue spend the majority of the day huddled together on the couch watching shitty movies. 

When Kaylar is forced outside to go to Jumbo Joe’s, they make at least five cups of coffee for the sole purpose of warming their hands, chugging the caffeinated beverage after it’s lost all its warmth. 

Adam stops by and tries to refuse the drink that Kaylar offers him. 

“I’ll be fine,” he says. 

“Dlaczego za każdym razem, gdy otwierasz usta, wszystko, co słyszę, to bzdury?” Kaylar mutters. (Why is it that every time you open your mouth all I hear is bullshit?)

Adam takes the coffee. 

 

The voice has come back by the first week of January, and Kaylar finds himself wishing that it had just stayed away. 

_ Vos revertetur _ , it murmurs in one ear. 

There’s a ghost muttering in the other, begging to see his family once more. 

_ Aliquid venturus est _ . 

Kaylar ignores it and finishes washing his hands before returning to work. 

 

Noah’s bedroom in Monmouth is untouched, no personal artifacts to be seen, bed made perfectly. 

Kaylar supposes this makes sense, as ghosts don’t need to sleep. 

Whenever Noah touches Kaylar they get a little shock, because they can feel how dead he is. 

It’s a strange sensation, but Kaylar supposes being dead doesn’t feel so good either. 

 

The whole clothing situation starts small, when Kaylar borrows Adam’s work shirt for a day. 

Kaylar forgets to give it back and wears it again and again and again. 

Then he stays over at Monmouth for a good chunk of a week for one reason or another and leaves a few articles of his own clothing behind. 

Ronan is wearing them a few weeks later. 

Adam stays in Kaylar’s trailer for a night and borrows a sleep shirt. 

He never gives it back, but Kaylar evens the score by washing his clothes and not returning his socks. 

Gansey, contrary to popular belief, does own t-shirts, and Kaylar steals one of those when she forgets to bring one. 

In retaliation, Gansey steals Kaylar’s fuzzy socks. 

Ronan starts wearing one of Gansey’s old rowing sweatshirts, then he chucks it at Adam when he says that he’s cold. 

It spirals from there, until no one can be absolutely sure whose clothes actually belong to who. 

Kaylar’s clothes are the only easily identifiable ones, seeing as they’re slimmer and shorter than all of the others, but not so much that their clothes won’t fit. Besides, with their tendency to wear clothes a size or two too big for them, it works out anyways. 

 

Lately, the ghosts have been much more active, making things much harder to Kaylar. 

It’s hard to ignore ghosts pressing up against you. 

Adam notices and asks, sitting cross-legged on Blue’s bed. 

Adam coming over to 300 Fox Way was a recent development, but he looked no more out of place than any of the others, so it felt like this had been a thing that had been happening since forever. 

Adam and Blue got along like a house on fire, and that was that. 

Blue and Kaylar exchange looks, and Kaylar pulls a face. 

“It’s nothing,” she says. 

Adam doesn’t ask, because Kaylar never asks about his bruises. 

He knows she knows, though, so Kaylar isn’t quite sure if that’s a fair trade.

 

“You should tell them,” Blue says. 

Kaylar looks up from where they’re outlining an exaggerated drawing of Gansey’s hideous boat shoes.

Honestly, those things deserve to be burnt. 

“Who?” Kaylar asks, playing dumb. 

“Those friends of yours,” Blue says impatiently, sitting up from her sprawled position on the bed. 

“Sure, because they’ll definitely believe that I can see ghosts.”

“One of them is hunting for a dead king. I think your thing will go over easy.”

“It’s not somethin’ ya just bring up in a casual conversation.”

Blue doesn’t reply. 

 

One cold February afternoon, Adam and Kaylar are sprawled out on the floor of Monmouth next to mini Henrietta doing homework. 

“What’s that?” Kaylar asks, pointing at a string of letters strung together in an unfamiliar arrangement on the page. 

Adam glances over. 

“Uh, Latin. It’s a required course.”

_ Quod illud est, non novi illum _ . 

“How do ya pronounce it?”

“Non novi te, like it’s written,” Adam explains. “It means ‘we know you.’” 

“Novi te,” Kaylar murmurs. “I know that.”

“Latin?” Adam asks dubiously. 

“I think… “

_ Mors olim videns _ , the voice whispers.

“How do you ask someone if what they’re speaking is Latin?”

“Uh… “

Adam’s nose scrunches up in thought. 

“Quod est… quod est Latine?”

“Quod est Latine?” Kaylar repeats. 

There’s a hush, like something has blanketed Kaylar’s surroundings in silence. 

_ Ita _ , the voice murmurs.  _ Ita _ . 

“Quick what does ‘ita’ mean?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Ita means yes, Kay.”

“Oh shit.”

“Oh shit what?”

Kaylar doesn’t hear his question, too busy sprinting out the door. 

 

“I think the voice in my head is speaking Latin.”

Maura looks back at Kaylar in surprise. 

“Okay.”

“Isn’t that supposed to mean something?”

“Just because you know what language it’s speaking doesn’t mean we’re any closer to figuring out what’s happening.”

 

Kaylar asks Adam for Latin lessons. 

He agrees, albeit confusedly. 

 

Kaylar meets Declan Lynch one rainy March night. 

Of course, ‘meet’ is a strong word. 

Kaylar more stood by and listened to Ronan and Declan argue in the middle of the parking lot because Ronan was her ride home. 

Declan storms off in a huff and the ride back to Kaylar’s trailer is tense and silent. 

“Where’re ya goin’?” Kaylar asks quietly, passenger door open. 

“Out,” Ronan replies, grip on the steering wheel tight.

Kaylar looks at him searchingly. 

“Racing,” Ronan admits. 

Kaylar hums thoughtfully. 

“I’m getting the rust bucket,” she says. “I’ll follow you there.”

 

April swings around, and it’s the first birthday that Kaylar has had outside of the confines of Melissa Evaelo’s crushing grip. 

Of course, she says nothing of this to anyone. 

Continues on like normal. 

Until Maura corners her the day before St. Mark’s Eve, April 23rd.

It’s not obvious that Kaylar is being cornered at first when she’s ushered into the now-familiar halls of 300 Fox Way and then chivvied into the kitchen, where Persephone is already waiting with a mug of tea. 

It’s only evident when Calla announces that she’s leaving and everyone follows her out soon after, leaving just Kaylar and Maura sitting at the table. 

She raises an eyebrow. 

“Ya need to work on your subtly.”

“Duly noted and ignored. We need to talk.”

“If this is about school—“

“It’s not about school.”

“What’s it about, then?”

“St. Mark’s Eve is a very important day for us.”

“Important how?”

“There’s a church just outside of town. On St. Mark’s Eve, the spirits of the soon-to-be deceased appear. It’s the only day of the year that this happens, and we use this window of opportunity to record their names and give the people warnings while they still have time left.”

“So ya want me to come along because ya think that with my creepy ghost powers I’ll be able to speed things along, yeah?”

“Essentially, yes.”

A pause. 

“And since we’ll be staying out past midnight, you can stay overnight and celebrate your birthday with us the next day.”

Kaylar isn’t exactly sure why she thought she could keep her birthday secret from a house full of psychics. 


	3. Chapter 3

Kaylar’s birthday starts out with Blue dragging them out of bed and downstairs, where everyone screams, “SURPRISE!” and they’re showered in confetti.

Persephone guides Kaylar towards an open seat with a smile, and a cake is brought out.

“We bought it while you were out last night,” Calla explains, lips a deep shade of blue. She leans in close. “Don’t tell Maura, but I sabotaged her attempts on purpose.”

Kaylar cringes.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

 

The cake, it turns out, is for breakfast, and everybody stuffs themselves full of the sugary food.

Kaylar has to duck out to get to Nino’s, but promises to come back after they finish their shift.

When they get there, there are four familiar heads of hair seated in the usual booth.

“Kay!” Gansey exclaims happily, perking up as soon as they enter the diner. “We were hoping to see you!”

“Ya know my schedule, Gansey,” Kaylar points out, disappearing for a moment in order to put their bag down in the staff room. “Ya know when I’m on the clock.”

They narrow their eyes, gaze falling on a nervous-looking Adam. Beside him sits Noah, who appears to be practically jumping out of his seat and jittering with excitement. Ronan is seated across from the ghost, slumped over with the side of his head pressed against the window. He’s scowling, but Kaylar can tell that it’s half-hearted.

Gansey fumbles for either an answer or an explanation, but Noah beats him to the punch, sprawling out across the table.

“Happy Birthday!” he exclaims, waving his arms around wildly.

Adam leans back to avoid them with a mildly amused look.

Kaylar’s gaze swivels over to him, and the boy raises his hands defensively.

“Blue told me, but then Noah wheedled it out of me so he could tell Gansey,” Adam explains. “They wanted to celebrate.”

“Cholera Niebieski,” Kaylar mutters, reaching for an apron hanging on the wall. (Damn Blue)

Gansey has recovered himself, beaming at Kaylar with perfect white teeth.

“Are you free at any time today?”

Kaylar shrugs, tying their apron on.

“I promised to head back to a friend’s house after this, but I’ll be able to meet up around five after my shift at Boyd’s.”

Ronan’s head shifts so that he can look at Kaylar.

“Friends, huh? What a miracle.”

“Says you,” Kaylar retorts, coming out from behind the counter and making their way over to the table.

“Don’t be mean,” Gansey says, frowning disapprovingly.

Kaylar flips open a notepad, tapping a pen against the paper.

“Ya gonna order anythin’?”

 

_Audi nos_ , the voice murmurs as Kaylar pulls into the driveway of 300 Fox Way. _Regem vocat corvus._

Kaylar makes a mental note of the words, saving them to look up later.

Walking up to the door, Kaylar doesn’t get time to knock before Maura is flinging the door open and yanking them inside.

Inside is chaos.

Streamers hang from the ceiling, confetti dusts the floor, glitter is smeared across the walls and there are children, both ghostly and alive, sprinting down the hall.

“Co ty kurwa?” (What the fuck?)

Maura winces as she toes a clump of streamers to one side.

“We were putting together a party.”

“Are ya sure?” Kaylar asks skeptically, picking their way down the hall.

There’s something glittery and sticky on the floor.

If Kaylar had to guess, they’d put their money on glitter glue or unicorn shit.

“We got sidetracked,” Maira admits, wading through a gaggle of children in order to get to the kitchen.

Kaylar follows, shivering whenever they brush up against one of the ghosts.

“I told you,” is the first thing Persephone says when Kaylar enters the kitchen.

She’s talking to Maura, who’s making her way over to the counter.

The counter itself is covered in all sorts of miscellaneous ingredients, and there’s a sharp, sweet smell lingering in the air.

“Yeah, yeah,” Maura replies flippantly. “We can pull it together by tonight, though, I’m sure of it.”

“I’m actually heading out tonight,” Kaylar interjects carefully. “Some of my friends wanted to head out and do some things.”

Maura wrinkles her nose.

“Those raven boys again?”

Kaylar crosses their arms.

“It’s my birthday.”

Maura sighs, bending down to peer into the oven.

“Just be careful.”

“When am I ever not?”

“Kaylar.”

“Nie będę się angażować w żadne morderstwa, jeśli tego chcesz.” (I won’t get involved in any murders, if that’s what you want.)

“That better be a yes.”

“Don’t worry, it was.”

Persephone drifts over from the kitchen, and if Kaylar didn’t know better, they would have taken her as a ghost.

“Come by later,” she says. “There’s much for you to learn.”

Kaylar cocks an eyebrow carefully.

“We talkin’ psychic learnin’ or school learnin’?”

Persephone blinks.

“There’s much for you to learn. There is also going to be a party”

Kaylar decides to quit while they’re ahead.

 

Kaylar pulls up outside of Monmouth Manufacturing at five in the afternoon, smelling like oil and metal.

Adam is in the seat next to them, grease smeared all over his face.

They glance at him.

“First person inside gets the shower.”

They bolt out of the car, leaving Adam to yell about cheating in the passenger seat.

 

Kaylar makes it into Monmouth first, Adam’s long legs not making up for Kaylar’s head start or speed.

The shower is nice and relaxing, although at some point Ronan barges in to drop off clothes and grab a beer from the fridge.

Kaylar cleans off quickly, only allowing themself to revel in the hot water for a minute.

The clothes Ronan has laid out aren’t theirs, but the hoodie is soft and the sweats are comfy, so Kaylar doesn’t particularly mind.

Picking up their dirty work clothes, Kaylar exits the bathroom and yells to inform Adam that the shower is free before going to throw their clothes in the laundry.

Gansey and Ronan are sprawled out on Gansey’s bed, sitting in the middle of the room, with cartoons on.

Kaylar flops down with enough force to make the bed shake.

Ronan barely has enough time to move in order to avoid being crushed.

“So, Adam and I thought that we’d go out to that ice cream parlor that you pointed out last week,” Gansey begins carefully.

Kaylar hums.

“Sounds like fun,” they agree.

Gansey’s shoulders slump in relief.

 

They go to the ice cream parlor and get too much ice cream and Kaylar lets Gansey pay for theirs after making him swear not to get them anything else.

Noah had come with, and Kaylar gets chills when he sits next to her.

He is the only one without ice cream, but it’s Noah and apparently none of the others are ever suspicious about his lack of eating habits even when those habits lead to him turning down ice cream.

Kaylar supposes that St. Mark’s Eve might have re-energized him.

Gansey is quieter than usual, preoccupied with eating his own cone of mint chocolate chip, but he still manages to keep up a steady stream of chatter. Most of it is about Glendower.

Kaylar smiles quietly, squished in between a ghost and Ronan, eating their own double scoop chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream in a recyclable plastic bowl that cost seven dollars and twenty-five cents.

They were, Kaylar muses, licking their spoon, rather sizeable scoops.

 

Kaylar returns to 300 Fox Way barely holding on to consciousness, but is practically slapped away by the screams of, “SURPRISE!” for the second time that day.

Spine stiffening, it takes them a moment for them to recognize the faces of the inhabitants of the small house.

They smile.

“I guess ya managed to pull the party together, huh?”

 

“Was the party just for show?” Kaylar asks, sitting cross-legged on the floor waiting for Persephone to come back with whatever she was fetching.

Maura shrugs.

“The kids wanted to do something nice.”

“Have they even noticed that I’m gone?”

“They shouldn’t if Calla does her job,” Persephone says, appearing in the doorway. She’s holding a bowl and some sort of plant in her hands.

“Ya left Calla out there with a bunch a’ kids?”

“Not by choice,” Maura admits. “Her energy would overpower what we’re trying to do tonight.”

“What _are_ we tryin’ to do tonight?” Kaylar asks skeptically.

“We’re going to see what you can really do,” Persephone says simply.

“And I can’t do that with three psychics in the room?” Kaylar asks, one eyebrow creeping up.

“Precisely,” Maura says. “Two of us to cut your energy if this goes badly. Three of us would dampen your energy completely. Calla’s energy was too powerful. That left us.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Kaylar says.

Maura’s answering shrug is confirmation enough.

“What do you want me to do?” Kaylar asks.

“How many of the dead are in the room with us?” Persephone asks softly.

She has still not sat down on the floor with Maura and Kaylar, instead towering over the two, mug of tea in hand.

Kaylar peers past her, to the ghost poking their head through the door.

They narrow their eyes.

“None, if you don’t count the nosy ass in the door,” Kaylar growls.

“Perfect,” Persephone says. “Tell them that they are welcome in this place for tonight, and to enter the room. Make sure to specify the room.”

Kaylar decides not to remark on any of that, doing as told.

“You heard her,” they say, glaring at the ghost. “On with it. You can enter the room. Stop snooping.”

Maura looks mildly amused.

The ghost inches through the door carefully, looking around in awe. Kaylar glares harder.

“Never seen this room before, snoopy?” they ask scathingly.

Ghosts are, as a general rule in Kaylar’s life, for the most part, annoying pricks who don’t know how to mind their own business. The thing about being the only one able to see them, however, is that one can generally not tell a ghost off for being an annoying busybody without looking like a lunatic to everyone else.

“I don’t think any of the ghosts in this house have ever seen this room,” Persephone says casually, crouching to set the mug of tea down in front of Kaylar. “Ask them to come sit down in front of you.”

Kaylar huffs, but beckons the ghost over.

As they draw nearer to Kaylar, their shape begins to solidify from the smoky mass that suggested physical traits and the form of a person to something more concrete.

Ghosts were complicated, but one thing Kaylar could always rely on was that they were never quite a _thing_ until they got near enough to see. Before, they were not so much a _thing_ as a suggestion of them. They were an insubstantial, organic shape that gave the viewer a sense of seeing something they couldn’t. When ghosts drew nearer, they shed that suggestion and became a _thing_.

This ghost seems to be a young woman with long hair flowing past her waist. She seems sharper than most ghosts, but no less colorless, like a black and white photo come to life.

She sits down in front of Kaylar, looking at the two psychics in what seems to be a mixture of both awe and wariness, hands resting upon her knees and spine stick-straight.

“Are they there?” Maura prods after a good five seconds of Kaylar and the ghost staring each other down.

“What do you think?” Kaylar snaps.

This close, the ghost’s chill is leeching all the heat from their skin, creating an aura of cold that Kaylar knew wasn’t going away any time soon. While this wasn’t the closest they’d ever been to a ghost, this was the closest they’d ever been to one while other people who were aware of their powers were watching them interact with an entity neither of them could see.

It’s setting Kaylar on edge, and they want to punch something.

“What now?”

“Drink the tea,” Persephone instructs.

She still has not sit down.

Kaylar picks up the tea, looking at it with doubt crowding her mind.

The ghost sitting across from them looks at the mug with interest, seemingly an inch away from leaning forward to investigate it herself.

Kaylar makes eye contact with her.

The ghost’s eyes seem to move from the mug to Kaylar.

Kaylar sighs and takes the tea like it’s a shot, knocking it back and gulping it down before they can taste it on their tongue.

They don’t know how much of the tea they’re supposed drink, but Kaylar supposes that they have to drink all of it for the suffering to be over as quickly as possible.

Kaylar sets the mug down, glancing up at Persephone.

“Hold out your hands,” the woman instructs. “When you’re ready, say that you welcome them.”

“What’s that gonna do?” Kaylar asks.

“You’ll see,” Persephone says. Maura opens her mouth, but a look from the blonde has her closing it and nodding along.

“Pieprzona psychika,” Kaylar mutters. (Fucking psychics)

They hold out their hands.

 

Having a ghost join you in your body is not a pleasant experience.

It feels like you’ve been shoved into a freezer, buried in ice cubes and had all the air knocked out of you at once.

And when the ghost finally gets oriented, they try to seize control.

The battle is quick, but it is fierce, and if you don’t have a will of iron and a personality as stubborn as a mule, then you may well lose that battle.

Kaylar knows this, because that’s what just happened to them.

Clutching their head, they double over with a scream as the ghost now inside them batters away at their mind in an attempt to lock it up and take control.

“Odpieprz się!” they scream, forehead pressed to their knees. “Zatrzymać!” (Fuck off! Stop!)

Maura leans forwards, but Persephone holds out a hand, but this time the other psychic doesn’t back down.

“They’re fighting and losing, Persephone,” she snaps, one hand reaching out.

A hand shoots out to grab Maura’s wrist.

It’s Kaylar, eyes glowing blue and breaths coming out hard and laboured.

“I’m fine,” they say, straightening up.

They release Maura’s wrist.

“A little warning would have been great,” they add, scowling at Persephone.

 

Having the knowledge that ghosts would be able to use Kaylar’s body if he let his mental walls down and inadvertently invited them in was not as off putting as he’d expected it to be.

After all, he’d been fine for sixteen years.

The thought of it, though, is weird.

Maura and Kaylar had conversed—or rather, Maura and her dead great-grandmother had conversed. Kaylar was more of a go between, communicating where Maura’s mother’s mother could not.

Adam taps Kaylar on the shoulder, shaking him out of his thoughts. The noise of the garage surrounding him comes flooding back.

“Gansey invited us over for dinner,” he says, sitting down beside the other boy. “We’re ordering in.”

“Will Ronan be there?” he asks.

“Are you two going to race?” Adam replies.

Kaylar shrugs. “Depends on how he feels.”

Adam sighs, a gusty, worn out sound.

“Alright.”

A beat of silence, and then he digs around in the pockets of his coveralls, extracting something wrapped in paper and tied with ribbon.

“Blue told me to give this to you,” he explains, offering it over.

Kaylar takes it, looking at the package suspiciously.

“You know what’s in here?” Kaylar asks.

Adam shrugs.

Kaylar tucks the package into his own coveralls and that’s that.

 

As soon as Kaylar leaves for his break, the phone in the employee lounge rings for him.

“You need to tell them,” Maura says as the phone touches his ear. “Tonight.”

“Tell them what?” Kaylar replies, far too used to being told to do mysterious things out of the blue.

“They’re going to need you to help Noah,” Maura answers cryptically.

She hangs up before he can reply, and he wants to slam the phone back into the cradle.

 

Ronan is not in the mood to race that night, which Kaylar is both relieved and apprehensive about.

There is something strange in the air, more than the energy that keeps Noah physical.

With all five of them in one room, Kaylar feels on edge, expectant, waiting for something to come.

He doesn’t quite know what, but he keeps a wary eye on Noah the entirety of the night.

Nothing happens.

At least.

Nothing seemed to.

Until.

The voice in Kaylar’s head suddenly lets out an anguished wail before its cut off.

Noah sits bolt upright, hands flying to his head as Kaylar himself topples off of Gansey’s bed where they’d all settled down to watch _Harry Potte_ r.

There is only one thump when they both hit the ground, and Noah disappears.

Nobody notices, because all of a sudden he was never there at all.

Gansey lets out a cry of surprise, scrambling off the bed to kneel at Kaylar’s side.

The other boy lashes out with one hand, the other tangled in his hair tightly.

_Quod iam inceperat_ , the voice yells. There is a rustling of leaves in Kaylar’s head, followed by branches snapping and then the dying cries of some sort of bird.

“Quod iam inceperat!” Kaylar yells. “What does that mean?”

“Where did you hear that?” Adam asks, surprised.

“Odpowiedz mi, do cholery!” Kaylar howls. “What’s it mean?” (Answer me, dammit)

“It has begun,” Ronan replies.

Kaylar is shaking now, breaths coming out in hard pants. He’s keeled over, face turned down and hidden from the other three with his hair.

“Where’s Noah?” he asks, words short, clipped and strained.

“He never came out,” Gansey says, looking steadily more concerned by the second.

“Check his room,” Kaylar commands, voice stronger.

Gansey exchanges a glance with Adam and Ronan, but complies.

“He’s not in there either,” the brunette reports, returning to the main room.

“Thought so,” Kaylar says.

He straightens up, shoulders sagging.

“I think I’ve got something to tell ya.”

 

“So you’re saying that you see ghosts,” Adam says skeptically. His brow is furrowed in concentration, ends of his mouth tipped down in a frown.

“Yeah,” Kaylar says, drawing the word out. He points over the other boy’s shoulder, the ghost that is almost always sleeping in the corner now awake and alert. “There’s one right there, actually. Calmest ghost I’ve ever seen, but I bet he’s been collectin’ information on all a’ ya for years. Ghost are gossips, they’ve got nothin’ else to do.”

Adam is still frowning.

“I know that you wouldn’t lie,” he says carefully, “but I don’t think that what you’re saying is real. You could be hallucinating, there could be something wrong with your brain. You don’t have any proof.”

Gansey and Ronan are looking at Adam, Ronan with a sort of curiosity, Gansey with some sort of wariness.

And Kaylar can see why Adam looks so awkward, so uncomfortable with saying that.

Because Gansey’s entire life’s work revolves around magic and the impossible, and Adam just revealed his doubts. Kaylar’s not sure if any of his followers, any of his friends, had ever doubted anything he’d said.

And why not? People were drawn to Richard Campbell Gansey the Third like moths to a flame, because that was the kind of person he was. They believed him with every particle of their being, because he was someone to be believed in.

Adam, however, was different.

Gansey had, Kaylar reckons, never encountered anything as different as Adam Parrish since Ronan Lynch.

“Fine,” Kaylar says, breaking the mounting tension. “Then I’ll show ya some proof. Dick, you better have a kettle lying around.”

 

Gansey does, in fact, have a kettle, though why on earth he has one in a house with only avid coffee drinkers in attendance, Kaylar has no idea.

He doesn’t particularly care either right now.

The tea tastes just as bad as it had last time, and Kaylar makes a face as he stands up to make his way over to the corner where the ghost he’d pointed out earlier is.

Settling down in front of them—up close, Kaylar can make out a defined jawline hidden by a layer of five o’clock shadow, tired eyes and shaggy, unkempt hair—Kaylar holds his hands out in front of the ghost.

The ghost looks down at his hands, then at Kaylar with a hint of surprise in his face.

“Well?” Kaylar asks. “What’re you waitin’ for? Come on in.”

 

There is no fight for dominance this time.

It’s more a quiet agreement was made as the ghost leaned forward to touch his hands to Kaylars and was pulled forwards and into Kaylar’s body.

Kaylar turns back to the three other boys with eyes glowing an ice-cold blue.

“Horace—that’s the ghost—wants me to tell Ronan that he needs to stop eating the snacks in the middle of the night because Gansey doesn’t like it. Gansey started building mini Henrietta approximately two and a half years ago. He doesn’t know Adam that well, but he did see him eat exactly four slices of pizza two weeks ago.”

“What the hell?” Ronan mutters, ignoring Gansey’s glare.

Kaylar tips his head to the side and shudders. The small spasms suddenly escalate into jerky, seizure-like movements, but his legs have locked themselves in place.

Nobody but Kaylar sees when Horace slips out of his body, stepping out of it like a doorway.

Kaylar falls to his knees, and surprisingly, Ronan is the first to reach his side when he starts hacking and coughing.

“Evaelo?” he asks, frowning. “Hey, shitstick. Breathe, dumbass.”

Kaylar’s whole body convulses for a few seconds more, hacking cough racking his form, before he finally stills.

Trembling arms finally give out, and Kaylar rolls with it, turning over onto his back, spread-eagle on the floor.

“Remind me never to do that again,” he mutters. He stills all of a sudden.

Ronan, looming over the other like a surly angel of death, raises an eyebrow. “What is it, shitstick?”

“I… might have something else to tell you,” Kaylar says sheepishly.

Soft footsteps against the floor, and then Adam and Gansey come to stand on either side of Kaylar.

He feels like he’s dead, come to be judged in the afterlife, three heads silhouetted above him.

“Noah’s a ghost.”

 

The revelation that one of your friends can see ghosts is, no doubt, rather earth-shaking.

The revelation that that friend can let ghosts possess them is, yet again, rather shocking.

The revelation that one of your other friends is, in fact, a ghost, is not as easy to accept.

 

Noah doesn’t show up for another four days.

 

Adam disappears when Noah reappears.

It is no surprise to anyone now, and even Gansey isn’t as worried as he used to be almost five months ago.

Kaylar feels a bit sick whenever she thinks of Adam, but doesn’t let the others know.

Noah, who had not been there before but is now, notices anyways.

“You’re worrying,” the ghost says.

Kaylar jumps, swearing quietly. “To, że jesteś duchem, nie oznacza, że powinieneś być ninja,” she mutters to herself, turning around to face the other. (Just because you’re a ghost doesn’t mean you should be a ninja)

“What’s bothering you?” Noah reiterates.

Kaylar ignores his question, squinting at him.

“Coulda sworn ya weren’t here a second ago,” she mutters to herself.

She takes a sip of her coffee, half-glaring at Noah.

 

Adam reappears, but he is limping ever-so-slightly and Kaylar notices Ronan notice that Adam is limping.

And if Ronan calls Adam over for a game of Mario Kart, where there is no reason whatsoever for Adam to be standing up, Kaylar pretends to be utterly absorbed in drawing on their arm when Adam looks to them for help.

They’ve been using these markers almost constantly for the past four months and they haven’t shown signs of running out of ink.

Kaylar will have to ask where Ronan got them.

 

Two weeks later and Ronan gets a call from Declan that has him punching the wall so hard that his hand bleeds before he storms out and screeches out of the parking lot outside Monmouth.

Adam and Gansey both look at Kaylar, who sighs, regretting his choice of taking his own truck to Monmouth.

He puts his slice of pizza down with instructions not to fucking touch it and pulls out his car keys.

 

As soon as Kaylar is outside the confining outskirts of Henrietta, Virginia, the voice that has been murmuring, _“Non expecto adventus tui”_ fades away and Kaylar replaces it with the roaring of his engine as he presses the gas.

Kavinsky has set up on one of his usual haunts, and Kaylar thinks he sees a familiar shark-nosed BMW roaring down the road.

He gets out and sits on the hood and Noah appears beside him.

“Why don’t people ever notice?” Kaylar asks, eyes tracking the two racing cars.

There is no white Mitsubishi in sight as of yet, but Kaylar still has this creeping feeling of dread.

“I don’t know,” Noah replies.


End file.
